Four Tacky And Tasteless, One Final ‘Crikey!’

“We desire death like you desire life.”

Hamas, in pictures and words.

For the Palestinians, death has become an industry, at which women excel…This is why they they have formed human shields of of the women, the children, the elderly…It is as they were saying to the Zionist enemy, “We desire death like you desire life.”

How civilized.

See Solomonia for more ‘enlightened’ thought from  Hamas MP Fathi Hamad.

Israel’s Malaise And Resurrection

Yesterday, Shrinkwrapped wrote Has Israel Lost The Will To Live?, a post in which he draws more than one gloomy conclusion about the future of Israel and by extension, the future of the Jewish nation.

We are rarely in disagreement with our esteemed fellow Sanity Squad member, but on this occasion we find ourselves believing that the plastic wrap may be on a bit too tightly.

Shrink writes:

I have also written about the dangerous fecklessness of the Israeli government and the Israeli Left which believes that, against all historical evidence, this time the Palestinians really are committed to Peace.  The evidence to the contrary continues to accrete, yet Palestinian genocidal threats, and similar threats from their supporters in Iran, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, et al, fall on deaf ears.  This is all well documented and dispiriting.

Shrink is right on the money. There is indeed a malaise in Israel under the leadership of Ehud Olmert- just like there was a malaise in America while Jimmy Carter was at the helm in America.

While it is true that depression can be a long lasting illness for some, it is also true that for the majority of people, depression is no more than a temporary condition resolved when they are determined to overcome the condition.

The American people overcame their Carter era malaise when Ronald Reagan took the helm of the great ship that is America. Under his leadership, this nation not only overcame the seemingly fatal malaise, but went to prosper and found her sense of pride and purpose once more, ideas that we were seemingly lost. When Mr Reagan delivered his famous words in Berlin, “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” he was completing the address and John Kennedy began almost 30 years earlier when he said, “Ich bien ein Berliner!” When that hated wall came down, there was a proud humility all free people shared- and none more so than the Americans. What was the cornerstone of the American ideal over two hundred years ago was to prove as fresh an idea today as it was then, that ‘All men are created equal.’ As Eastern Europe was set loose from the bondage of communism and repressive leftist ideologies, and old truth emerged. Given the choice, people will choose freedom as a cherished political expression and free markets as the desired economic model, no matter how painful the transition might be.

The Israelis, like the Americans in the Carter era (and some might argue even now) are suffering a kind of malaise. It is not fatal and indeed, like the Americans, they will not allow themselves to be worn down by the likes of the failed and dysfunctional regimes and broken, bigoted, racist and murderous cultures of the people that are attempting to strangle her.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister of Israel and former mayor of Jerusalem may have reached a turning point in the same way that Jimmy Carter did when the Iranians stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and held 52 American diplomats for 444 days.

Carter, who was stunned to learn that the Soviets would lie to him and were indeed not such nice people was the forerunner to Olmert. With the murder of the Jewish religious seminary students and subsequent celebrations by the Palestinians, the former mayor of Jerusalem may have experienced a real wake-up call. The bestial transgression of a religious institution took place in his city, on his watch and as he was being conciliatory to those for whom such kind of behavior is a cause for pride.

Ehud Olmert was a very good mayor. Time will tell if he has within him to be a very good Prime Minister of the State of Israel or he is that nation’s Jimmy Carter. If the latter is true, the Israelis will elect a very different kind of Prime Minister, one who the Palestinians might not like very much, especially if that new Prime Minister demands civilized behavior from them.

It is also interesting to recall that prior to Olmert, the vast majority of Arab residents of Jerusalem wanted to remain under Israeli administration, as recorded by successive polls. ‘Better the hell of Israel than the paradise of the Palestinian Authority ‘ is an often heard mantra.

While the current political images from Israel are bleak, it bears remembering that far greater forces than the dysfunctional Palestinians have tried to eliminate the Jews. History has shown that while Jews may show up to the fight late and at times ill prepared, in the end they will prevail. They will fight not only for themselves, but they will fight for their legacy. Every year at the Passover feast, Jews are asked to celebrate the seder meal ‘As if they themselves were brought forth from slavery to freedom.’ The same is true as they memorialize the destruction of the Temple- for each new generation, the loss is fresh and new.

Shrinkwrapped writes,

Israel has the power to destroy their enemies many times over.  That is a frightening prospect.  Their enemies do not believe that the Israelis, civilized in ways that their enemies are not, would ever take the necessary steps to safe guard their people and stop this war.  Yet the Israeli government could win this war with methods far short of total war.  It is a question of will.

If the Arabs are correct and Israel has lost the will to live, this war can only end with the destruction of Israel and a second Holocaust where they will, as they often boast, finish the job Hitler started.  The Palestinians would be only too happy to administer the coup de grace but it will  be the Israelis who have committed collective suicide.

Shrink is right, of course, but there is yet another absolute picture our esteemed colleague has yet to bring into focus.

There will not be another Holocaust.

The next Israeli Prime Minister or the one that follows will be of Sephardic origin. He will be of a family that suffered persecution under the ‘enlightened’ Arab regimes and he or she will have grown up listening to aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers recalling their persecution, the desecration of synagogues, cemeteries and other Jewish shrines, many of which preceded the advent of Islam. These Jews are not encumbered with European sensibilities like their Ashkenazi cousins. They know the Arabs only too well and like their Arab cousins, they have long memories (that is a reality Arab leaders are not unaware of. Leaders of Libya and Syria have made overtures to the Jews from those nations to return. Implacable foe Syria has even begun restoring Jewish cemeteries. These nations have reason to fear a Sephardic Israeli leader) and they will respond not as Europeans, but as Arabs.

It is ironic that Arabs who have so skillfully manipulated European Jews determined to elevate them may finally be forced to respond to Sephardic Jews who are not so concerned with Arab well being or Arab ‘pride’. Sephardic Jews, one generation removed from their homes (and persecutions) in the Arab world would be delighted to do to the Arabs what the Arabs promise to do to them. Without a comprehensive peace deal, that reality is just below the surface. As Abba Eban noted, ‘The Arabs have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.’

Europe may tolerate a  pre Holocaust environment, but in the end, they wont allow a real Holocaust of Jews on their watch. The Anchoress recalled an article by Spanish Journalist Sebastian Villar Rodriguez.

We assassinated 6 million Jews in order to end up bringing in 20 million Muslims!

We burnt in Auschwitz the culture, intelligence and power to create. We burnt the people of the world, the one who is proclaimed the chosen people of God. Because it is the people who gave to humanity the symbolic figures who were capable of changing history (Christ, Marx, Einstein, Freud…) and who is the origin of progress and wellbeing…

We also have exchanged culture with fanaticism, the capacity to create with the will to destroy, the wisdom with the superstition. We have exchanged the transcendental instinct of the Jews, who even under the worst possible conditions have always looked for a better peaceful world, for the suicide bomber. We have exchanged the pride of life for the fanatic obsession of death. Our death and that of our children.

What a grave mistake that we made!!!

Europe will not commit active suicide. Allowing for another Holocaust and the destruction of the State of Israel will empower and enable European Muslims like nothing else Europe has seen. This will not be allowed to happen. The impending destruction of Israel and another potential Holocaust is the excuse Europe will use to deal with the radical Muslims in their midst. One promised ‘Final Solution’ in the Middle East might very well lead to another and very real final solution in Europe.

Even the Arab world fears Israel’s demise. A Palestinian ‘victory’ and subsequent slaughter of Jews will only inspire unhappy citizens in their own dysfunctional regimes. Like the western nations, they will not allow a culture of terror to be unleashed in their midst. There is a reason some of those nations are calling for peace with Israel- they see the handwriting on the wall and hear the clock ticking.

Finally, there are Maccabees in Israel who are prepared to do whatever is necessary to defend their people. For them, ‘Never Again’ is not a slogan, but rather it is a promise. Faced with another Holocaust and annihilation, the Israelis will bomb the Arabs back into the stone age (a trip that in reality is not that distant),  and in the end, will solve the ‘Arab problem’ once and for all. There will be no lasting images of Jews silently walking into the ovens of their adversaries. The lasting images will be the moonscape on the lands those who would would rejoice in the destruction of men, women and children, yet again.

When the clouds dissipate, the entire world will thank the Israelis (under their breath).

And the Arab world knows it. If it were not for oil, they would be the singularly most failed societies in the world.

The Israelis have not lost the will to live, only the will to fight- for now.

That will change. The Israelis  will find their own Reagan and recall once more their commitment to themselves and their legacy.

Once more, Abba Eban in speaking of the Arabs:

Time and again these governments have rejected proposals today – and longed for them tomorrow.

The Palestinians would be wise to consider those words.

For more on this topic, see Let The Sun Shine In And Other Insights Into The Arab World.